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WEST VANCOUVER — Seven years after writing a University of B.C. English class essay on why ski cross deserved to be in the Olympics, Ashleigh McIvor delivered the ultimate visual argument on Tuesday.

Skiing through a Cypress blizzard — yes world, it does snow on the hills of West Vancouver — and pulling holeshot after holeshot to ensure she avoided the carnage behind her, McIvor became the wild, chaotic sport's first female gold medallist.

Two days after watching incredulously as her boyfriend and teammate, Chris Del Bosco, crashed hard off the second-last jump with a podium spot in the pocket of his ski suit, the gutsy Whistler product delivered the seminal 2010 moment the fledgling national team was looking for.

"I'm so thrilled. This is the best moment of my entire life," said an exuberant McIvor, her cheeks glowing a rosy red.

And the best part is, she knew it was going to happen. She flat out knew she was going to win.

Pressure? No way. Unnerved by expectation and a raucous home crowd? Not a chance.

"It was weird," she said after running the endless gauntlet of IOC-friendly television and radio stations to reach the print reporters, some of whom have covered her for three years.

"This was the only race of my life where I just felt like I was going to win. I used to think it was bad to think that way, that I was going to jinx it, or that I'd be so disappointed if I then didn't win. I don't know, I just had a really good feeling about this race ... this crazy feeling that I was going to win."

It wasn't crazy at all. She was the reigning world champion and No. 2 in this season's World Cup standings. And when No. 1 Ophelie David of France, the multiple World Cup champion, was knocked out in the quarter-finals -- only the top two in each four-skier heat advance -- it was essentially McIvor's event to lose.

That just wasn't going to happen, though. Not even when the snow got heavier as the heat racing went on.

"The weather was actually more comforting for me because I felt like I was at the top of Blackcomb Mountain [at Whistler] ready to go, ready to drop into [a run]. It was amazing. This was the only race of my life where I just felt like I was going to win. It felt like it was my race, my course. I felt really connected to it."

The second-fastest of the 32 qualifiers, McIvor grabbed the holeshot in the final and began pulling away on the twisting, jump-laden course on which handfuls of loonies were buried in the snow of each corner.

Hedda Berntsen of Norway took silver and Marion Josserand of France the bronze. But when McIvor crossed the finish line, they were just landing off the final jump, some 30 metres back.

Kelsey Serwa, the 20-year-old from Kelowna, looked poised to join McIvor in the final, but opened up on two jumps late in her semifinal and was passed by Austria's Karin Huttary, who finished fourth, and Josserand. She did bounce back to win the consolation final and wind up fifth. Julia Murray of Whistler, skiing with a partially torn ACL in her left knee, battled gamely and wound up 13th.

It was a tough course for the women, particularly out of the start, where several had trouble navigating the huge Wu-tang feature -- essentially a massive W with large dips and flat table tops on the middle point and last point of the W.

It required strength and perfect technique, something the Canadians had got from practising hundreds of times on just such a feature. Technique and toughness are two of McIvor's strengths.

The 26-year-old may have done some runway model work, and her camera-friendly demeanour may project some external softness, but she is one tough woman, physically and mentally. She's had a wonky shoulder pop out 14 to 15 times by her count, so many she can easily direct anyone nearby how to pop it back in.

And the girl who was skiing down the carpeted steps into her family's sunken living room at age two developed a no-fear attitude by challenging every type of terrain while skiing Whistler Blackcomb.

"Growing up in Whistler, I was shredding PoW[der] and jumping cliffs, chasing the boys my whole life," she said.

"That's kind of what this sport is. It's a combination of skills developed from being an alpine racer and those big mountain skills, skiing in the back country and racing your buddies from the top of the hill down to the bottom. That's the beauty of ski cross, ski racing in its most natural form.

"And who could go out and represent Canada better than a Whistler girl."

McIvor said she drew inspiration from another girl who traversed the Whistler backcountry, snowboardcross gold medallist Maelle Ricker.

"I was thinking about what Maelle Ricker said when she finished [a week ago], that she was focused on exploding out of the start. Thank you Maelle. She was a real inspiration. She kind of made me go, 'OK, local girl. This event was made for us.'"

Del Bosco, watching from behind the finish corral and occasionally blowing an air horn, said it was amazing to watch McIvor win the gold.

"I'm so happy," said Del Bosco. "She just dominated. She's the best skier out there."

McIvor said Del Bosco's misfortune was on her mind as she approached the bottom of the course in the final.

"I actually thought as I went through that corner ... 'Don't do what Chris did!'"

Cam Bailey, who manages the ski-cross team, said the gold medal by McIvor was an "incredible, incredible relief. We came here to win and we got it today. There's three places that count at this race and today it counted."

Bailey, with the critical financial support of Own the Podium, was the architect of a program that left no stone unturned in preparation. So detailed was the effort that when Bailey's secretary's boyfriend became the starter for the Olympics, the team taped his voice so the skiers could listen to his inflection and try to improve their reaction time.

McIvor, though, has gifts that make her special, said Bailey.

"She is a terrific natural athlete. And her head space is one of a whole bunch of distractions. When she's a little bit distracted, she performs really, really well. I don't know what was going on in her head today, but it was nice."

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